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39 Alpha scientists engage, as a team, in one major project at a time to support our mission. We also keep a couple of projects just off-stage. These ideas have passed the pub-napkin appraisal stage, have grown small legs of their own, but do not yet have financial support.
Geologic Hydrogen
ORIGINAL WORK
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CONTEXTUAL PIECIES
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The Earth produces hydrogen naturally when some rocks, react with some fluids, under some conditions.
If captured, this hydrogen can be reacted with oxygen in fuel cells to yield a higher energy density (by mass) than hydrocarbons, without adding carbon to the atmosphere.
Scientists at 39 Alpha Research are currently assisting public and commercial entities to de-risk geologic hydrogen development and accelerate the shift away form fossil fuels, by conducting large-scale geochemical simulations that chart the potential of different subsurface environments to generate hydrogen.
Our chemical maps reveal how the potential to generate hydrogen evolves as a large number of controlling environmental variables are changed (for example, see our previous work, Ely et al., 2023).
This allows us to guide our clients towards optimal conditions, and to consider how uncertainty in controlling variables relates to risk for hydrogen recovery efforts.
Are you conducting serpentinization experiments in the lab?
Are you trying to determine the optimal location and rock composition to drill into in order to produce hydrogen?
Are you searching for the optimal water + rock compositions to stimulate hydrogen generation?
Are you uncertian how the constraints in your pertiular system will effect your hydrogen generation potential?
Carbonate State Space
CONTEXTUAL PIECIES
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Microorganisms in the surface oceans of Earth absorb 23–32% of anthropogenic CO2 annually.
A large fraction of these organisms also produce calcium carbonate shells (CaCO3) from dissolved carbon. When these organisms die a fraction of them sink into deep water, sequestering their carbon cargo away from the atmosphere in a process known as the carbonate pump.
The image above shows a photosynthetic bloom ~385 km (240 miles) wide, in the Pacific Ocean (light green-blue streaks). Photo: NASA LANCE/EOSDIS RAPID RESPONSE
We have begun preliminary geochemical modeling to assess how increasing atmospheric CO2 affects the biological carbonate pump, and how CO2 feedback from the ocean system change as the carbonate pump slows under continued acidification.
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